How to Convert "Likes" into "Buyers" with Influencer Marketing

Word-of-mouth advertising and influencer marketing are important strategies that are working well in the changing digital marketing space. Consumers share their sentiments about the brand, product, or service on social media. People read each other’s posts and reviews. 77% of consumers consider online reviews very influential in making purchase decisions.
Once a customer reads and likes a review by an influencer, they are half-way through in your sales cycle. You’ll now need to use a little persuasion with the right sales strategies to convert them. But how can you convert a person who “likes” an influencer’s post into an actual customer? Let’s find out.

1. Choose the Right Influencers for Your Business

How would you feel if a fashion blogger suddenly started talking about a herbs and spices brand on her blog? Odd for sure.
Her followers would be left scratching their heads. Many may be so traumatized and surprised that they may consider unfollowing her. Her authority and influence would surely decrease and her followers would be disillusioned.
If you want to promote herbs and spices, you need to approach food bloggers who write about different ingredients. It is all about finding the right influencer for your product. A food blogger has the audience who is already interested in food and food ingredients.
Obviously, it’s important that you vet your influencers carefully. Study the influencers and their areas of expertise before approaching them.

2. Challenge Your Influencers

To grab more eyeballs, try to set up competitions and challenges for your influencers. The idea is to engage your influencers and keep them interested and invested in your campaign. This will encourage them to create great content which will truly interest their followers.
Both small and big businesses can use this strategy of setting up challenges for influencers. And the great part is that you can set up challenges or competitions with a modest budget. Practically the only investment required here is for the prize. Make sure that it is attractive enough so that your influencers are motivated to participate.

Image via Instagram

Clothing brand, prAna, set up a #7DayStretch challenge and promoted it on Instagram and Twitter. They asked influencers to wear the same pants for 7 days in a row and then talk about it on social media using the hashtag #7DayStretch.
Influencers picked out the pants they loved and wore them for 7 days continuously. They talked about the things they did wearing the pants, and posted pictures with the #7DayStretch hashtag. The campaign created quite a buzz, and prAna got hundreds of new customers.

3. Share Affiliate Links

You can incorporate the strategies of affiliate marketing into your influencer campaigns. It just requires that you create a unique URL for each affiliate and track your conversions. The affiliates earn money when there is an actual sale. In this case, your influencers will be your affiliates.

Image via Instragram

This is a cost-effective strategy. You need to identify influencers who align with your affiliate strategy. You must share your expectations with them. Because they’ll earn commissions only if there are sales, they will be more focused on creating quality content for your product or services.
The best part is that you can test hundreds of influencers at once and focus on the ones who provide you with desired results.

4. Connect with Local Influencers

If your business is local, local influencers can help you reach your target audiences. Local influencers already have an established audience. And there are strong chances that some of their followers would be local. So if you have a business that would benefit from real footfalls, you should connect with local influencers from your city or town.
To find and connect with local influencers, you can use Buzzstream or Grin. Buzzstream can help to search the influencers by location and social platform. Grin can help you to do the same along with finding authentic contacts and managing the overall campaign.

Source: https://www.thelondoner.me/2012/11/pizza-pilgrims-soho.html

Once you find the influencers, set up your budget. Pitch your proposal to them, convey your expectations, and then let the magic of influencer marketing work.
That’s the strategy that Pizza Pilgrims adopted. They partnered with local influencer bloggers like “The Londoner” to get the word out about their pizza van.

5. Don’t Ignore Micro-Influencers

In a world ruled by the Kardashians, there are still people with smaller followings who are just as influential – in their niches, of course. Brands should leverage the power of these micro-influencers.
Micro-influencers generally have higher engagement rates. Their followers love to hear what they have to say about different products and services. They can influence buyers with their authentic style of leveraging social media and blogs.

6. Use More Videos to Educate Buyers

Videos are popular. The rapid growth of YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook Live proves that. By 2019, of all internet traffic is expected to be videos.
Influencers posting videos gather massive followings. Brands know the power of videos. As a brand, you can build both visibility and credibility with the help of influencer videos.
It is a great medium to educate your potential customers. You can tell them all about your products and services with the help of influencer videos. Choose an influencer who will be actively involved in promoting your content. And make sure that their audience is relevant to your brand.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/user/chrisellelim

Asian American, Chriselle Lim, is a top fashion influencer. Her YouTube channel, Chriselle Factor, is very famous. She partners with global brands like Target and Estee Lauder to help them reach new audiences and drive sales.

7. Distribute Promo Codes

Fans and followers of influencers love them for the authentic content they create. Brands can increase their sales by giving promo codes to influencers to share with their followers.
Influencers love to give big discounts to their followers. It helps them grow their influence and popularity. Followers love promo codes as they can shop at discounted prices using them.
With the help of promo codes, your brand can track your influencer marketing efforts. Influencer promotions helps brands get more buyers.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/BQOiARuAAMx/

Fitness clothing brand, Body Angel Activewear, partnered with fitness and yoga trainer, Laura Kasperzak, to promote their brand. She posted a promo code in her Instagram feed for her followers.

Over to You

People trust recommendations from other people more than they trust advertisements. That is why influencer marketing works. As a brand, you can learn to leverage the power of influencer marketing by collaborating with influencers. Influencers help shape buyer’s decisions, and they help move goods.
There are several ways in which you can convince a buyer who likes your product to buy it. If you have more tips to drive conversions, please share them with us in the comments. We would love to hear from you.

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